In the Wake of the Wounded Woman

When I was a little girl, I equated rape with death. The movies (and bad pulp fiction and even comics) were to blame, of course. I did not know yet that men - and children - got raped too and I was too young to know what rape meant, yet I was convinced that if a woman was raped, either she got killed, or she had to kill herself. The only other alternative was to die whilst fighting the rapists.

Nobody told me this. It was just an association of ideas (thanks to Hindi movies, I also used to think that if someone saw you naked, you had to get married to him). While I was growing up, there was no concept of life, post-rape. The idea that a rape victim might want to live, and might want relationships and kids and so on at some point in the future - it just didn't occur to us. It wasn't just me. It didn't occur to classmates or cousins either (if it did, they kept it a closely guarded secret). Our films didn't show us. The books we were allowed to read didn't show us. And no adult even mentioned the word 'rape' or 'sex' in our presence.

I did have a vague idea that the police was supposed to do something but rarely did, and that this failure led husbands or brothers or beloveds to take up arms and seek bloody vengeance. I also remember thinking that it had to be the worst thing that could happen to you, because not only could you not do anything about it, you also had to kill yourself. It doesn't get much worse than that, does it?

In my teens, I watched a few movies where an alternate was presented - you could marry your rapist. Or rather, he married you. You even got to sing songs through the whole mucky business. (It is worthwhile noting at this juncture that the Supreme Court of India, even today, is passing orders that specify that an offer to marry a rape victim doesn't translate into bail for the rapist.)

The first time my ideas were shaken off their perch was when I saw Zakhmi Aurat (Wounded Woman). I cannot remember how old I was. I didn't have a clue about what rape meant but with this film, two things came undone. One, the way the rape itself was treated. Until then, rape scenes meant actresses running - usually in sarees or lehenga-cholis, sometimes in slow motion - or attempting to crawl backwards as they lay on the floor or bed, wherever they had been tossed. The villian would be struggling to pull away her pallu. Even when I was little, I used to wonder why the girl spent so much time and energy holding on to the fabric, clutching it to her chest, saying 'Let go!' Why didn't she just drop the saree and run?

I have seen Zakhmi Aurat only once. But one rape scene has never left my memory. Here was a young woman who dressed in pants. A cop. And she was being gang-raped inside her own house. She wasn't just an object being used to satiate a villian's ungovernable lust. She was being deliberately humiliated. In fact, she wasn't just being humiliated. She was being physically hurt. This was the first time I remember thinking: "Oh my god, they are going to break her bones, or crack open her skull."

This was the first time I saw a film that showed the trauma of life after. Because, instead of hanging herself from the ceiling fan, leaving an accusatory note behind, or complaining to her brother about her stolen 'izzat' and how she was no longer fit to show her face, this victim was living in her own house, where different objects and spaces were constant reminders of her pain and humiliation.

Most significantly, this was the only movie I had seen in which a victim takes some action barring murder. She puts together a vigilante gang of women who have been raped themselves, or whose family members have been raped. They start kidnapping rapists and castrating them. Surgically, mind you, with the man being placed under anasthesia.

Much later, I found out that this was supposed to be a controversial film. Some people had objected to the sheer number of rapes and the explicit scenes. I still don't fully understand the controversy and don't want to get into the politics of crime and punishment at the moment. All I want to say is that it was an empowering film for me.

For the first time in my life, I was being offered the idea that rape was brutal but it need not lead to death. For either victim or culprit.

There were other ways in which this film broke away from stereotype. It showed the rape victim being dumped by her fiance, but afterwards - after she is arrested and put on trial - he finally asks her to marry him. She is pleased to be taken back, of course. But even this - a happy ending - seemed like such a novelty in a film about rape. Besides, it got me thinking. I remember thinking that perhaps, the heroine should not be going back to her fiance, not after the way he abandoned her when she needed him most.

The only other Hindi film that helped me break away from stereotypes around the rape of the bhartiya nari was a black-n-white film called Patita (the one with that lovely romantic number 'Yaad kiya dil ne, kahaan ho tum...').

It was the first Hindi film I saw in which a rape victim is not only happily married - not to the rapist, thank god - but her baby is a product of rape, accepted and cared for by her handsome husband. It was the first time I saw a screen rape victim being allowed to sing romantic songs in the moonlight, allowed to be something other than traumatized.

Another scene from Zakhmi Aurat that surprised me was a song. The villain/rapist has just been castrated. He is back home and now his wife is demanding sex. She is attempting to seduce him and he is pretending to have turned spiritual, to have undertaken a 'Brahmachari' fast (which means that he is going to abstain). His wife sings and dances and finally strips him, which is when she discovers the truth.

The song was supposed to be comic, I suppose. I cannot decide whether it is in bad taste or not. But it achieved something important. It showed that rapists might have non-aggressive sex lives too, that their relationships with their wives might be very different, that their wives might actually be happy, and completely clueless about their husbands' brutalization of other women. This idea came as a bit of a shock to me. I still find it a little hard to deal with, but it taught me to think of things that are flattened out of the frame when you allow for only uni-dimensional screen characters. It taught me that just as victims are stereotyped, rapists and their families are stereotyped as well.

Possibly, if I watched Zakhmi Aurat now, I'd find fault with it both from a storytelling perspective and a feminist perspective. Nevertheless, the film is significant.

Just like The Accused was significant. I was made to watch by a friend. In fact, her father made her watch it while she was quite young. Perhaps, he wanted her to know that she should never, ever, blame herself in case something like that happened. That it doesn't matter if you're drunk, or drugged, or promiscuous, or in a bar, or even if you have been kissing the accused. Perhaps, her dad was trying to tell my friend that even if other people are blaming you, or laughing at you, you shouldn't give up. Not when it comes to demanding justice for yourself.

I am grateful to my friend for leading me to the film. Like every other woman, I was brought up on the usual bullshit ideas that seek to shift blame onto the victim. The Accused once again shook up my ideas, forced me to look at rape with new eyes.

What really worries me is that over the last two decades, I have not seen any Hindi movies that take this a step further. I remember the horror of rape scenes in Bandit Queen, and there has been the odd rare film that puts rape in perspective within the context of another narrative (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi did so), without allowing it to become the dominant feature in the female lead's life. By and large, either filmmakers avoid the subject altogether, or end up churning out rubbish that echoes old justifications for rape, such as how a woman dresses, and where she goes. The rest of the film is about everything else - from the horrors of westernization to the erosion of values among spoilt rich brats - except the rape itself, and the way our society deals with survivors.

Perhaps, the trouble with too many artists is that they forget their own power. The power of media. Films and books are as much a tool for challenging social ideas as they are tools for emotional discovery or just plain storytelling. You can break stereotypes. You can stretch limited imaginations. You can help others become less judgmental human beings. You can save children. But you have to want to.

(Cross-posting now on BlogHer)

Shame, shame

When I read that an editor in my country has been arrested, on the grounds of having outraged me, all I could feel was shame, and revulsion. For those who claim to believe in a god I can lay claim to, those who have kidnapped the prophets who were my inheritance. For those who buckled, despite having assumed the responsibility of ensuring that my rights were not violated in my own land. For governments and administrations that choose to arrest editors, instead of those who threaten them.

I am ashamed that we live in a country where someone is not allowed to call religion(s) oppressive. I may or may not agree with that view, but I want the right to say it, to agree with it, to put it into print, and to reprint it as many times as I think fit.

I am ashamed that not one newspaper in this country has seen fit to create some noise about this. That not one newspaper is running a campaign against threats to free speech from every upstart, self-appointed guardian angel of some random group's sense of self-esteem. That editors across the country have not seen fit to republish that so-called outrageous article, as a mark of protest.

And I am ashamed that an artist cannot show nudes at Jehangir Art Gallery any more, the place where I spent so much time hanging out, absorbing art, thinking, interpreting, sniggering, criticising. It galls me to spend time in that gallery now. When I sit in Samovar and order a cup of tea, I cannot forget that this is a place that didn't even bother to wait and find out if it would be targeted by the police, or random goons who are afraid of undressed people. It taped up its own face, willingly, before it could be gagged.

I am ashamed that we are so quick to bend into terrorised little kowtows, that we prefer to walk around with someone else's nauseous rags stuffed into our mouths. Really, this doesn't feel like the country I was promised. A democratic, sovereign, socialist republic that guaranteed free speech and free expression of ideas. I thought.

The the-80s-were-good-for-cinema post

Talking about films - or any art form - can be a draining exercise. I am often overcome with a sense of futility mid-way through such conversations, because you just cannot get the other person to see. For instance, that eternally raging debate about poetry and 'access'. Or that completely abhorrent debate about whether Shakespeare was a plagiarist, and whether there is any such thing as an original idea. Or whether violence in films has a negative impact on society.

I usually just shut up and smile politely when someone picks up one of these fatiguing threads in conversation. But the other day, I got into a bit of a discussion that took off from poetry and modern mediocrities, and ended with an allusion to our 80s cinema. To that era of Hindi cinema that is described as 'the dark ages'.

I didn't like that. It suggests that Hindi cinema during that decade had stooped to lows that it had not seen before, and has not seen since.

I'm not sure I agree. When I was growing up, all I saw was Indian cinema - mostly Hindi, but thanks to Doordarshan, some other languages too (Sound of Music, which I was subjected to six times at least, does not count). But having been only a small child in the 80s, with very few tools of analysis, or indeed any real judgment, I am no longer sure whether my memories of that cinema are true.

So before I said anything further on the subject, I decided to go do a little research. (And having stayed up till 5 am to do this post shows just how strongly I feel about this subject).

What exactly was the 80s cinema?

Was it all about loud, regressive, violent, formula films (another post on this term, another day) where heroines were being raped all the time, and then committing suicide, and where the villians were evil beyond measure and the heroes were from amongst the great unwashed and looked it? Where things were black and white too often, and all characters were unidimensional? Where the song and dance routine was increasingly looking like an aerobics class crossed with, with, I don't know, genetically modified moonwalkers? Where Bharat natyam costumes were being mated with bikinis, and sarees with minis?

Maybe some of it was. But a lot of it wasn't. In the year 1980, we had movies like Aakrosh, Khubsoorat, Karz, Sparsh, Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai and other widely acknowledged brilliant films which I have not seen. There were others which weren't bad at all (in my opinion), such as Kala Pani, Shaan, The Burning Train.

In 1981, there was Laawaris, Ek Duje Ke Liye, Love Story, Umarao Jaan, Zamane ko Dikhaana Hai, Kaalia, Dhuaan, Naram Garam, which I liked. And 36 Chowringhee Lane, Chashm-e-Baddoor, and Silsila.

In 1982, there was Angoor, Arth, Bazaar, Gopichand Jasoos, Namak Halal, Namkeen, Bemisaal, Nikaah, Prem Rog, Satte pe Satta and Shakti, many of which I've watched multiple times. (Besides, IMDB tells me there were also titles like Bachche Teen Aur Daaku Chhe, which I must make an attempt to acquire, some day).

In 1983, there were films like Himmatwala and others in that genre, which I didn't care for. All the awful stereotypes apply. But, but, but!

But there was Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron! The year 1983 gave us this awesome film and there's been nothing like it since. And there was the equally awesome Ardhya Satya and Mandi. Other films that I am content to like included Betaab, Disco Dancer, Kalaakaar, Naastik, Sadma (wherein I am told, I howled the movie theatre down, repeating "But mummy, why did she leave?").

The year 1984 gave us Saaransh, Mashaal, Utsav and (though I have not yet seen it, I have heard so much about it that I'm going to put it down as a positive) Mohan Joshi Haazir ho! It also gave us Tohfa (which I'm not a fan of), but that's in the Himmatwala category.

From the 1985 list, I liked Meri Jung, Aitbaar, Jhooti, Khamosh, Pyari Behena, Saheb. (And as a matter of principle, I must try and watch Aurat Per Ki Jooti Nahin Hai). Though I don't remember these too well, I think I didn't mind Aakhir Kyon, Bhavani Junction, Ghulami, Pyaar Jhukta Nahin, Mohabbat, Ram Teri Ganga Maili, and actually, even Bhaago Bhoot Aaya. Not great, but I could live with them.

In 1986, I liked Anubhav, Chameli ki Shaadi, Ek Chadar Maili Si, Naam. There was also Jaanbaaz, Nagina (so sue me. I liked it) and Aakhri Raasta, which I will include on my list of likes simply because of its unashamed self-spoofing in the song "Gori ka Saajan".

The lyrics go something like: Yaad karo tum filmon mein/kya kya scene dikhaate hain/ Leyt ke baatein karte hain/ daud ke gaana gaate hain/ Main peechhe bhaaga/ tu aage daudi/ Lo ji shuru ho gayi love story..." and all the while, the hero and heroine are happily running, lying down, singing. Matching-matching action to word. I love it.

In 1987, there was Mr India, Ijaazat, Kaash, Ye Woh Manzil To Nahin. I vaguely recall having liked Pyaar Ki Jeet and Mohre too.

In 1988, there was Tezaab, QSQT, Hero Hiralal, Malaamaal, Main Zinda Hoon, Pestonjee, Rihaee, Salaam Bombay!, and a film which most of us have not seen but I have heard so many wonderful things - usually in the realm of hyperbole - from those who have seen it that I will include it in this 'the 80s gave us good cinema' list - Om-dar-ba-dar.

There was also Zakhmi Aurat, about which I will do a whole post some day, because it was an important film, even a life-altering one. And there was also a rather sweet children's short film called Angootha Chhaap, which I might never have seen except for the fact that Doordarshan once decided to show two shorter films instead of the regular Sunday evening movie. All these years later, that film is still there in my head!

These I didn't think were so bad: Dayavan, Pyaar Ka Mandir (the title song is still stuck in my head), Hatya, Khoon Bhari Maang.

In 1989, there was Chaalbaaz and Chandni, Maine Pyaar Kiya and Daddy, Parinda and Prem Pratigya, Raakh and Ram Lakhan and Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro - all interesting for very different reasons. And there was also Nigahen (shut up! okay?) and Tridev.

So these were the 80s for me as a film-lover. It is true that I suffered through Loha, and Paap Ko Jalaa ke Raakh Kar Doonga, and Mardon Wali Baat, and a hundred variations on 'khoon' 'insaaf' 'insaan' and 'suhaag'. But so what?

I also suffered through Bal Brahmachari (introducing Puru Rajkumar), in the nineties, and that was the first film I actually walked out of. Since the multiplexes came in, I have become picky about what I watch on the big screen, but I'm sure there are several films made in this decade that you wouldn't wish upon your friends.

Can you think of more than five or six decent-to-good films made in a single year, in this decade? If this is our average count now, and that was the case in the 1980s too, what's the difference?

Somebody is bound to pipe up now with the 'Oh, but you are counting parallel cinema' argument. I don't buy that argument. Hindi cinema is Hindi cinema. You cannot cut films like Arth or Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron out of the '80s Bollywood frame. No more than you would cut Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi out of this decade. The point is not big names or big money. Even now, the biggest names and the biggest money is associated with sub-standard movie-making. Even now, the really different films, the experimental films - a sort of parallel cinematic movement, if you like - are made on smaller budgets, and fresh talent.

So what, then, makes us so tolerant of 'now', while dismissing the 80s as the dark age of Hindi cinema? Is it just that we are tolerant of anything that is ours - our children, our cultures, our cinematic eras, ourselves? And if that is not the case, then please, explain.

Chewy introspects

A few days ago, a friend had handed me a copy of A Grasshopper’s Pilgrimage and asked me whether I’d like to review it on this blog. I was a little surprised because I’ve had very few such requests, and besides, reviewing is something I do very reluctantly, because it feels like too much of a bother having to explain why a book or film worked, or didn’t. But here goes:

I must begin with a disclaimer and a confession. I am totally not into spiritual reading. I shy away from books that come with spiritual/religious tags and over the years, I’ve become suspicious of anything that describes itself as a ‘journey of the soul’ or something along those lines. Which is not to denigrate the genre. It is just that I personally start to get restless and irritable at the mention of the soul.

It was, therefore, with a small measure of trepidation and guilt that I agreed to do this review. It isn’t fair to approach a book with shelf-sized biases. That said, I have to confess that this book was a pleasant surprise. It was smooth reading right through. Author Manjushree Abhinav chose to tell an honest story instead of wrapping up a sermon in a novel’s cloak.

A Grasshopper’s Pilgrimage takes you through confusion and heartbreak, and the romancing of Gopika’s soul. The protagonist is a young, attractive woman from a family of atheists and finds herself inexorably drawn to Gurus, meditation centers, ashrams and the like, much to the consternation of her revolutionary grandparents. Each time she thinks she has found a solution, she is forced to reconsider – questions, answers, solutions, free will, screws, all of that.

Those are big words and big dilemmas, yes. But I think what works in this novel is that the protagonist is very real. Her language feels real. Her family and social context feels real. Her disappointment about love not being such a pat little affair, and her fears about not being good at her job, not knowing what she is good at – these are themes anyone can identify with, regardless of how deeply rooted they are in the spiritual realm. For a spiritual book, this turned out to be surprisingly temporal fare, and I’m glad I read it after all.

My personal take-home from this novel: it forced me to think. Mostly about why I resist spiritual reading (or viewing) so hard. I think I found some answers too. But that’s for me to chew on, alone.

To others, I would recommend the book if you’re looking for reading that isn’t so light that it becomes meaningless, and yet is not so heavy that you’ve got to shake your head every ten pages to make room for more verbiage. Finally, it is a well-written account of a young woman looking for – presumptuous of me to say this, but I’ll say it anyway – herself, and of the people who helped her get there. It is a story well-told and that’s why we read, don’t we?

Of verbal slips, binaries, and a very quick dip into feminism

Months ago, I had been tagged to do a post on feminism. It should have been easy, especially for someone who has publicly declared that when it comes to the word feminist, "I don't care how you define it. I am it.'

But oddly enough, it isn't easy. Not when the words you borrow to speak about it are already hoarse with overuse. And how large is my experience of feminism anyway? It scarcely moves beyond outrage and argument, chafing and resenting. But perhaps it is time to think a little bit more about women and their battles. My trigger came from here. From the first comment specifically, which amused as much as it angered me.

I will, for the moment, just focus on the way the said gentleman (or woman, one never knows) chose to express his disapproval. "Show us how advanced you are.... open a brothel... Let us f*** you for free..."

My immediate reaction was to point out to the said gentleperson that the idea of a brothel involved remuneration. No freebies. But then, I got thinking about the links in his mind that led him to say this. Is that how they think of 'forward' women. As a huge brothel where you don't have to pay?

I'm not sure what to feel insulted by - the suggestion that I am a prostitute, or the suggestion that I should let future sexual transactions be unencumbered by monetary considerations, or the underlying idea that women who go to pubs must forfeit their claims/rights to payment even if they are prostitutes.

There is an interesting, amusing polarity being set up here. The gentleperson - and there might be billions of people all over the world who agree with him on this - seems to suggest that women can be one of two things. One - forward, loose, pub-going prostitutes who are not looking for, and not entitled to money. Two - backward, socially and sexually conservative, non-drinking (at least in public) non-prostitutes.

About this latter category, two further deductions are possible. One, 'they' (said gentleperson and the billions that are on his side) assume that non-prostitutes, not being prostitutes, do not seek money for sexual services. As a corollary, they seem to suggest that non-prostitutes are the ones who actually do deserve payment, because the rest of us (forward, loose, pub-going prostitutes) do not.

In the latter case, there is a problem, because the moment a person starts accepting money, however indirectly, for sex or related services, he/she becomes a prostitute, whether or not he/she goes to pubs, falls in love, holds hands by the sea, wears chaddis, etcetera. Some of those billions out there might wish to add to the list of prostitution pitfalls - any woman who wears jeans or skirts, any woman who wears red, or white, or pink, any woman who smokes, any woman who wears make-up, any woman who laughs loudly in public, any woman who doesn't cover her head, and maybe her face too. But then, let us not venture into that territory.

Let us focus.

In the former case, there is no ostensible problem. Here's a non-prostitute. And she is not asking for money. However, if she started going to pubs, or taking lovers, then she would turn into a prostitute, even if no money enters the picture.

So there are two factors to be kept in mind if one wishes to remain a non-prostitute. One, you cannot ask for money. Two, you cannot go to pubs or fall in love. If a woman goes to a pub with her husband (who is not paying her for sex, of course) and/or happens to be in love with him, then she is treading a very fine line. She risks being a prostitute. Perhaps, a prostitute with a protector who insists on exclusivity.

But if she is not going to pubs and is not taking lovers, she is neither forward nor loose. Which is what 'they' would like all of us to be.

There is still the curious matter of the assumption that a man is entitled to freebies at a brothel. Because you see, the world is full of prostitutes (by 'their' definition). And you might well choose to make them pay for it. Beat them up. Or quite simply, f*** them for free and leave them. But then, since you would have have availed of and, in the process, rendered sexual services, and also made the other party pay for it, you would by default become a prostitute.

So if 'they' are now a collective brothel, there is this question of whether or not they should be f****d for free. If no, then they are exposed as illogical hypocrites. If yes, then that makes the world one big brothel, except there is no immediate, explicit monetary transaction involved with neat breakdowns in columns and rows. Which is exactly what the world is, by and large.

Which would bring us to the question of 'which way forward?'... It is all very confusing, isn't it?

I am concerned with words because they hold the key to social understanding. We use some words pretty loosely amongst friends. 'Prostituting our art'. 'Prostituting our souls'. 'A slut for chocolate'. 'Book slut'. 'Cinema whore'. What we mean, really, is that we are either doing something only for money, or that we are passionately devoted to something, to the point of not being very discriminating about the object of our affections, or else, to a point that seems to be unreasonable to the rest of the world. Prostitution is defined by a need for money. Sluttiness is defined by passion or devotion.

Therefore, gentlepersons leave amusing comments. He was confused, of course. Because forward, pub-going women don't do it for money. So, you can call them prostitutes, but you cannot tempt them by the rules of the protitution industry. And you can call them sluts, but you cannot win their devotion so easily. So obviously, it isn't that easy to f*** them, unless you use force. Or unless they let you. Difficult position, no?

As a society, I think it would do us good to think about words and concepts a little more. To think about what we mean before we open our mouths (or hit the 'send' button). Maybe we should introduce this as a subject in high school. It is not enough to just pick up words and start using them in grammatically correct ways. We also need to relearn and reexamine why we use those words, where they come from, and when it is time to stop using them.

For instance, I think it might be advisable for both interviewer and interviewee to read just a little bit about the brassieres, their predecessors, their purpose and what they symbolise to the female spirit aching for independence from sundry crushing expectations. It might also be advisable to look up 'psychotic' in the dictionary and a brief history of the feminist movement, so that next time the word is brought up, there is no need to point it towards someone like an accusation, and no need to defend onself from the charges of being one.

New means, new genre

So, here's some of what has kept me busy over the last few months. Incidentally, the article misquotes me slightly. What I said was that I hadn't written poetry for six months, but I was working on other kinds of fiction and non-fiction. Also, this is technically not the first play I've written. But it is the first full-length one written entirely in English.

I didn't win eventually, but the shortlist brings some reassurance. Perhaps, I'm doing what I should be doing, after all.

This is to say, I haven't forgotten

I have been silent on this, as on many other things for a while. And gnawing at me, always, the guilt of not doing more. I was the one who said, we've got to stop taking it. I was someone who believed that to suffer oppression in silence is like tantamount to being part of the oppression. And yet, for days and weeks and then months, I did nothing at all about Blank Noise.

What does it mean to say you are involved with something when you fail to put in time and effort into pushing this cause? I don't think I can ever stop being involved - or thinking of myself as involved - as far as street sexual harassment is concerned. And yet, it gets harder and harder to find the fight within, and take it to the streets.Yet, every few days, I remind myself. That it is out there, the fight. Every few days, the fight comes back to me.

Even though I take buses very, very rarely and only as a last resort, and even though this is much against my own will. This is to say that I haven't stopped stepping out on the streets, however, and I have not stopped confronting harassment. This is to say, I haven't stopped feeling angry.This is also to say that sometimes I get really, really tired. Sometimes, I cannot bring myself to step out of an auto-rickshaw and cross the road, and instead, I make the driver take a series of very inconvenient turns on very jammed/dug-up inner lanes, just so he can drop me at the very doorstep. Sometimes, in the inner lanes of a posh neighbourhood, some stranger says something that is humiliating and is intended to humiliate, and very often, I am too tired to find something to say in response.

And this is to say that sometimes, I cannot find my tongue. I want to retaliate but find myself looking at the time instead, and up and down the road and counting the number of people there are about, and wondering what sort of people they are and whether they will think I had it coming, because just look at the time.This is to say that I have begun to understand how people who join movements feel. Not professional activists. Just ordinary people with jobs and deadlines and daily commutes, who decide to fight back, and then begin to think that it doesn't matter how long they fight and how hard. They are outnumbered, out-powered and for their particular cause, always too poor. And bad news just keeps coming in, year on year, each time wearing a new head, so that the problem just looks bigger and bigger. Like some sort of hydra-headed monster. Cut one head down and another appears, malevolent, reaching for you.This is to say that I have begun to feel a sneaking, shaky streak of violence crowd my heads on the streets, sometimes, and I have to stop and shake my head and let go of it. That I have a diminishing sense of proportion about what sort of reaction is justified, and when.This is to say that I have begun to spend more and more time wondering what to wear. It is stupefying and stultifying and I thought it was over, this reconnaisance of a wardrobe like I was going out to battle instead of hanging out with friends in some cafe or pub, but it isn't over.What happened in Mangalore was harassment. Not moral policing. Harassment. Violent, and deeply sexist harassment. It was a form of terror, actually. Using violence in the name of nation/religion/ideology. The attack was political and deserves to be treated as premeditated political violence.

My first, immediate reaction was that those so-and-sos deserve to be repaid in their own coin. One fine evening when they are chilling with their cronies, a gang of armed women should descend upon them and beat the living daylights out of them, abuse and humiliate them in public, with a dozen television crews looking on. But then, we are a democracy and, at least in theory, governed by criminal procedure codes. So my next thought was that these people should be picked up by the cops and have the living daylights thrashed out of them. That wouldn't be very lawful either. And Gandhiji wouldn't have approved, I guess. Though I have my doubts. If Gandhiji ever caught his sons attacking peaceful women sitting around nursing a drink, I have a strong feeling that he would use his danda after all.
Sometimes, I begin to wonder if I am wrong about this staycalmretortbutdonotgetviolent attitude to violent, abusive strangers. Sometimes, I begin to wonder if the world would not be a better place if governed by hard-drinking mothers who consistently use hairbrushes on their sons' backsides.

Because, this is to say that it won't go away. This constant fear of what might be done to you because you are a woman and somebody might accuse you of being something they think you shouldn't be and then proceed to insult you or hurt you physically, and then you might be stuck in law courts for the next fifteen years trying to have them tossed in jail for a few months. This terror that it might be your turn next time, Mumbai instead of Mangalore, is not going to go away. But this is also to say that hiding inside homes, or cars, or sticking to very elite venues won't make it go away either. So even if it isn't going away, its got to. Somehow.
I don't know how. I don't know if slow, steady conversation, sharing, documenting, information disseminating is the way forward. Or petitions and legal interventions should be the focus. Or whether street art and exhibitions will help. Or whether we should all turn into counter-terror volunteers. Or what. But somehow.

Because we are what we vote

Because we must not forget.

Thoughts, borrowed and echoed

It has been a while now, since I took time off from work. That is, paying work that allows me to feel independent.
One reason for this break was that I wanted time to focus on my own writing. That is, writing that I want to do, regardless of whether anyone wants to pay for it, publish it, praise me for it, or not. The other reason is that I had begun to feel I was on very uncertain ground. I needed to think about many things. About how I work, what I choose to write, in which genre, and whether my work means something after all.
I was not - am not - looking for reassurance. I don't need to be told "Oh, but journalists/writers like you are needed". I'm objective enough, unsparing enough, to know why a certain kind of writing is required and what it accomplishes. But I needed to figure out whether I am willing to pay the price I must, in order to go on writing.
All writers, across genres, have to pay the price for their choices. Some brilliant minds who would rather write about ecology end up writing inane pieces about how the manufacturers of X detergent or Y soap might kill the competition. Some feminists end up writing about the inevitability of Brazilian waxes or the merits of 'settling' for a man, as long as he'll marry you. Some have written about their own despair, and died of it. Some have written their truths and been exiled or jailed or murdered for it.
They could have chosen not to, you know. I think of that often, these days. That these days, it is so easy to give offense. I'm certain there's enough on this blog, for instance, to offend several groups. So far, I've not bothered to censor myself. Or haven't I? Have I said everything I could have said? Have I not stopped to think, rethink, saved drafts and slept over them a few nights, to make sure I wasn't saying something indefensible, to make sure I wasn't crossing any lines of offense?
It is fine to say "but that is the only responsible thing to do". Perhaps it is. And perhaps I have tried to be responsible, rather than afraid. But what if I did say something indefensible? What should have been done to me? What if I did cross all lines, offending everyone right, left and center, across caste, religion and gender lines? What would I lose? A reputation? A home? A career? Liberty? Life?
These are difficult questions. For a writer who is aware of the repercussions, and who isn't in these times, these are beyond moral or ethical dilemmas. These are matters of life and death. Because, really, it takes so little, and makes so little sense. Somebody has a problem with the title of a movie. People could die. Somebody has problems with a beautiful song. People could die. Somebody paints. Somebody could die. Somebody shoots a photo. Somebody could go to jail. No laws are broken. And yet, suddenly, you could be stripped of your right to life and liberty, your right to expect that your country will protect you as a ctitizen.

Take a well-known book that might well have had its demerits, but we aren't allowed to find out. "The Satanic Verses is a rich and complex literary novel, by turns ironic, fantastical and satirical. Despite what is often said, mostly by those who haven't read it, the book does not take direct aim at Islam or its prophet. Those sections that have caused the greatest controversy are contained within the dreams or nightmares of a character who is in the grip of psychosis. Which is to say that, even buried in the fevered subconscious of a disturbed character inside a work of fiction - a work of magical realism fiction! - there is no escape from literalist tyranny. Any sentence might turn out to be a death sentence. And few if any of even the boldest and most iconoclastic artists wish to run that risk."

The above paragraph is from a piece titled 'How Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses has Shaped Our Society' and it echoes many of my own concerns. Not because I wish to criticise religion in print but because I wish not to approach writing with fear in my heart. Because the only thing that fear produces is more fear and any work that has been infected by fear is at best, mediocre, and really, utterly worthless as a testament to a lifetime of thinking and creating. One might as well not write.

While I would urge everyone to read the whole piece, please do at least read this little section:

"The word, though, that is most frequently launched at the heirs of Rushdie is Islamophobic. Almost any criticism of Islam or any of its adherents is likely to trigger accusations of Islamophobia. For example, in 2007 the Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque exposed various preachers making hateful and violent statements regarding women, Jews, homosexuals and infidels. By any journalistic measure it was a compelling and revelatory documentary. But in the media storm that followed it was not the inflammatory preachers but the programme-makers who found themselves subject to an inquisition. The police tried to prosecute them for broadcasting "material likely to stir up racial hatred". And when that failed they referred the film to Ofcom for censure. It took nine months before the film-makers were fully vindicated and their professional reputations restored.
Of course, very few people sympathised with the preachers shown in the documentary but many did want to express their sympathy with Muslims in general, whom they saw, not without reason, as an embattled minority. And to the well-intentioned, the best way of doing this was to condemn anyone who criticised any Muslim, regardless of their extremism. As the playwright David Edgar put it: "Whether they like it or not, the current defectors [his term for those liberals who criticise extremist Islamic leaders] are seeking to provide a vocabulary for the progressive intelligentsia to abandon the poor."

Two points of madness

Two points quickly made themselves apparent in the wake of the recent madness that was the attacks on Mumbai, starting November 26th. One, people – articulate, moneyed, powerful people – are upset and frantic to ensure that something like this does not happen again. This, I understand.

What I do not understand are certain extreme, juvenile and surprisingly lazy demands from grown-ups who should be able to think through the consequences of their words.

War.

Such a word, this one. We use it during cricket matches. We use it to describe a counter-terrorism operation. We use it to describe a terrorist strike. We use it to describe a verbal spat. We use it to describe separatist movements. We use it to describe non-separatist armed conflicts. We use it to describe breaking marriages.

War. On the front pages of the newspapers, everyday. Editorial teams putting together a checklist of things we should do to our neighbours. American politicians helpfully announcing in public that India plans to strike terror camps inside Pakistan (gee thanks!). Calls for compulsory military training... The rationale for these howls for war is that we are already at war and since we appear to have leads that point to a Pakistan-based terror group’s involvement, we should go invade the country. The ‘teach them a lesson they won’t forget’ rationale.

I sometimes wonder if this generation, the one that has not really lived through a real full-blown war, has begun to crave one. One of those things. Like disaster tourism, crisis tourism, the need to experience the thing physically. There was Kargil, but then Kargil was so far away. An inaccessible spot where the only people really threatened were the guys in uniform and the poor locals who had nowhere else to go. We saw the coffins on TV. We heard the boom-boom. But it wasn’t tangible, was it?

I remember asking my family about war once. I asked them for their memories because I had none. They all wrote back with faint, brushing encounters. The 1962 war. The 1971 war. My grandmother, knitting for the soldiers. Black paper on the windows. Windows tightly shut, dim lighting. Rationed sugar. Food rations. Strangers showing up at school to take kids away from the classroom, under the pretext of war.

And that was then. Before either nation had the nuclear option. Even if we don’t nuke each other, can you even imagine what a modern war would be like?

When the city was attacked by ten men with rifles and bombs, who were firing randomly, upon people of all religions and nationalities, we felt like the whole city was being held hostage. We hated the fact that other people died. But more than anything else, we hated the fact that we couldn’t go on living. That we were forced to be afraid. Afraid of eating out, taking a train, afraid of just being you and not knowing why you are a target. And if I was scared then, I am terrified now, when my country seems to be dragged towards the brink of war. Yet, I notice a glibness sneaking in, an easy, childlike enthusiasm for some fireworks. A 'War, finally!' attitude.

Can you imagine war, I want to ask people? Cowering inside your own house, perhaps feeling it shake, sticking black paper on windows, feeling like a target, day and night. Do you not understand the concept of ‘carpet bombing’ and ‘civilian targets’? Do you think that, while our soldiers are sent off to do battle at the borders, we will be able to sit around sipping coffee, making music, shopping at Linking Road? Do you think Bombay (or Delhi or any other major city) will not be a target? Can you imagine how afraid you will be then, because your kids are in school and you won’t know whether you should just pull them out until things are better, or what? Can you imagine contemplating a pleasant stroll down to the sea when there are bombers flying past, inches away from your bedroom window?

Three nights of a crisis, more or less in a limited part of South Mumbai, and we had an emerging black market for drinking water! And you want this country to go to war?

Who are we fooling about the real purpose of such a war? It is an extremely juvenile imagination that assumes that the extremist outfits based in Pakistan will be sending their cadre to enlist as jawans. It will be the same poor lot on that side, fighting because someone else has called for a war. It will be their little babies at risk. Their farms and schools and hospitals and hotels. And because we are such kindred cultures, they too will have people selling food and fuel on the black market. Probably drinking water too. And, I suspect, they will also try smuggling sugar across the border.

War, they want! War with who? The extremists across the border have been bombing their own country, for god’s sake! Those who came with bombs didn’t come in the name of a neighbouring country. They came from the nation called the lust for power, the nation of the psychologically damaged, whose leaders rarely sign up for suicide missions.

The truth is, people are calling for war because war is easily spoken of, and rarely experienced. All those people who are talking about aggressive action and military training, will they also agree to a compulsory stint in the armed forces? Will they let their children be put into uniform and sent off marching to lob a grenade or two across the border? Nobody minds getting a little toughie training. It adds to our sense of security. But just take a look at the composition of our armed forces. Take a look at what percentage of our officers come from the elite 1%, or even the upper middle classes. Take a look at the average soldier and what sort of options he had and why he signed up at all. He isn’t looking to save our collective backsides. He doesn’t lunch at the Oberoi and he sure as hell does not want to go to war. He’ll go if he has to, but I think he would appreciate it if we don’t sacrifice his head to humour a nation’s hurt ego.

And since we are on the subject of nations, there is that other point of madness: the calls for boycotting of elections, or worse, the notion that our cities and states are better off being ruled by CEOs. Corporates. Because ‘politicians’ are filthy so and sos, and we don’t want any of them.

If there is anything that scares me more than talk of war, it is this sort of talk that wants us to renege on our pledge to ourselves. To stop being a democracy. To turn into a theocracy or a collective of monarchies.


What on god’s earth is this ‘India’? A nation of what? A democratic nation? A sovereign, secular, socialist republic? That was the idea, yes. And look what we’ve done for over sixty years. We voted for religion. We voted for caste. We voted for sub-caste. We voted for class and privilege. We voted for whoever our parents or in-laws voted for. In short, we voted for ‘us’. That is, when we bothered to vote at all.

And now you have the gall to say: vote for ‘nobody’!

Why? Didn’t like your mug in the great national mirror called parliament? The Lok Sabha, the Vidhan Sabha, the city councils, the municipality: this is our face and if it smells like our unwashed armpits, it is because we like to bury our smuggy faces in our armpits so often.

I overheard a conversation in the train, recently. One woman telling another (in the first class compartment) that they should make friends with a third girl, who happens to work with the railways. Because, just in case they ever got caught ticketless, they could call her up and ask her to speak to her railways colleagues and get them off the hook. This is us. This isn’t our bureaucrats or our politicians. Us.

I am both appalled and wearied by the incessant chant, calling for heads to roll in the government, the police and intelligence. This blaming of politics and bureaucracy is just extremely lazy talk.

How blind are you that you cannot see that those heads are really ours? Our states, our cities already have CEOs. They are called ministers. The only difference between a minister and a corporate-style CEO is that the latter pretty much owns you, and you have almost zero power over him. He can fire you. You cannot fire him. Is this what we want India to become? A place where some rich dude rules us, can get rid of us, can silence us, and we cannot do anything to dislodge him?

If we don’t want this, then why do we keep saying it? Why have we gotten to the point that we cannot admit to ourselves that we are actually afraid of our responsibility in this great, big (and yes, flourishing) democracy?

We are, politically speaking, such an ignorant country that it makes me cringe to think of it. Forget elections. Many of us cannot even name our own prime minister and president and the local councillor or MLA. The vast majority of this country simply does not know! A lot of this has to do with illiteracy, yes, but a lot of it also has to do with not wanting to know. And it’s not just the poor and the illiterate. It is because anyone who can afford to takes pride in saying ‘Oh, but I am not a political person’. We want to cut ourselves off from the business of running a nation, or a city. We want the government to function like some sort of sub-contractual service provider. We don’t have leaders because we don’t want leaders. We wanted thekedaars; we got thekedaars!

Which is why I am doubly disturbed by this ‘vote for nobody’ campaign. Yes, I heard about 49O, and I know it is supposed to pressurize our political parties into choosing better candidates. But I am deeply concerned about the language used. To encourage people to vote in patterns that ensure that no clear winner emerges in any constituency is not a very healthy trend in a democracy. It is a lazy trend. It is lazy to just say ‘I choose nobody’ when you should be making an informed choice.

What is ‘nobody’? A ‘nobody’ is a negative. It is a political black hole, the kind that doesn’t do much for people who need light and gravity, both. Perhaps that is what they mean when they say ‘vote for nobody’. Perhaps this is our new face. A nobody face, which does not pretend to stand for anything and makes no excuses for its own ignorance or inaction.

And guess what, I too have had enough. I am tired of having to deal with a philosophy that seems to equate doing nothing with having done something.

We will not bother to vote. We will not bother to create lobbies that pressurize governments into listening to our demands, even in non-election years. We will not vote for independents, because we are suspicious of their non-political antecedents. We will not find out how democracy really functions in this country. We will not even give generously to charity. We will ignore the Bhopal gas tragedy victims and their demands for a proper clean-up job. We will not spend half an hour visiting a municipality office to register a complaint. We will not pay our unskilled employees decent wages. We will not show up at our candidates’ doorsteps, demanding to know what happened to electoral promises, to remind them of what happens when people take loans but don’t pay up. And we certainly will not vote for those who actually have given their lives to social work and bringing change.

Instead, we will pay bribes, kickbacks, commissions. Or else, if we have the connections, we will use a high-up functionary in the bureaucracy or government to bail us out when we get into trouble. And we will go on moaning about the state of the nation and how it can all be fixed if we just stop voting and start making war.

Mumbai, post.

The other day, I went shopping for veggies at the nearest supermarket, and found it almost empty. The girls employed there were kidding around with each other. I heard the word ‘terrorist’. One girl told another she’d set the terrorists after her friend. The other one alleged that she was one herself. Light laughter. Odd, somehow. Perhaps, necessary, somehow.

Yesterday, I’d stepped out with my own bag and a laptop, boarded a train and opened a book. My station arrived, I got off and ten seconds later, wondered why my shoulder felt light. I’d forgotten the laptop in the Ladies compartment.

In a mad rush, I turned back. I had no way of tracking down that same train even if I did follow it in the right direction. The train had started moving by then, so I jumped into the nearest compartment. I almost fell. A stranger reached out and grabbed me at the door, pulled me inside. Others asked me to sit down, catch my breath, relax. I was too worried to step away from the door.

Five years ago, I would have worried about somebody walking off with my laptop, about losing all the writing I’ve done over the last few years. Yesterday, I worried that somebody would notice an unclaimed bag and panic. I worried that somebody might call the cops and the machine might be either dismantled beyond salvaging, or that I would be called in to explain, and who knows if an explanation would be explanation enough.

A couple of days ago, a friend had told me about riding in an auto-rickshaw whose driver wasn’t in the mood for rules. He jumped a traffic light. The cops stopped him, asked for his papers. They asked him his name. Turned out to be a Muslim name. More questions. Many more questions. They wouldn’t just let him got with a fine and a warning.

A woman lives in our building. Introduced herself as ‘Nisha’. My mother, out of old habit, asked for her full name. She said, ‘Oh, it’s a long name, you won’t be able to pronounce it’. Turned out, her real name was ‘Badr-un-nisa’. Not that hard to pronounce, my mother said. If you’re familiar with it, Nisha said.

Another friend mentioned how, as part of a citizen’s initiative, she walked up to the nearest cop on duty and thanked him – the entire police force – for what the cops had done. He laughed in her face and said, why, because this time it was the big hotels, and all you rich people were in danger? He didn’t think our gratitude would last. So much cynicism, I thought, at a time like this? Odd, perhaps, but necessary, perhaps.

Yet another friend had minor shrapnel cuts on her chin. She had been out there with the other journalists, on the streets for two and a half nights. There was no food and drinking water was being sold on the black market. Spirit... city spirits.

Yesterday, I fretted and tried not to think unpleasant thoughts until the train stopped at the next station. I got off and ran back towards the Ladies compartment. The laptop was where I had left it, apparently untouched. Five years ago, I wonder if it would have been left alone.

By the time I found it, got hold of it and stepped down, the train had started moving again. I almost lost my balance. Once again, a stranger’s hands, and I didn’t fall, after all.

On my way back, in the compartment next to mine, a bunch of young women were talking rather loudly. One woman was asking if TADA was a place, because people were always being ‘put in TADA’. Somebody else said it was a special kind of jail. Another was explaining that it was a law. Somebody said something else about Tada-Bida. Light laughter. Odd, somehow. Perhaps, necessary somehow.

The incomprehensible and the uncomprehending

Couldn’t sleep last night. Though I’d heard the news, I didn’t switch on the television until yesterday. I just didn’t want to see. It wasn’t until afternoon that I finally saw. The empty streets, the burning hotels, the blood, the bodies, the funerals, the speculation. There was nothing to do but wait to hear something else.

Couldn’t help thinking of my grandmother. She used to say that not a leaf moves but for the will of god. No wind dares blow, no water dares fall, no tree dares grow but for the will of god. It is hard to deal with, this idea.

It is hard to deal with the idea of a god whose will is terror. Or a god whose allows violence along with all the other things – poetry and passion, stories and films, dance and song, flowers and fashion. It makes no sense.

Many of my friends would say, the idea of god doesn’t make sense. Amongst the many messages I got last night, there was one that said ‘if the world had followed Darwin and Dawkins, and there was no god, we would have been much safer today’. The other messages were more to the point. Some mentioned madness. Most just asked ‘are you ok?’

Yes, I’m safe.

I too sent ‘are you okay’ messages. Scrolling down my phone list and scanning names, I was reminded of the time I had sent out similar messages, when the last blast had happened in Delhi. And before that, when I was in Delhi myself, and the blasts had happened in Bombay, I had sent out such messages. And before that, there had been blasts in Delhi and I had gotten such messages. I had had a cruel thought once – thank god I don’t have close friends in Kashmir or Guwahati. A pointless, frustrated thought. Friends, cities, fear. There’s no containing them. They go everywhere, and you take a little bit of them with you everywhere too.

And everywhere, the same questions: who and why and what for? And throughout, this constant thought in my head: why don’t they get it? There’s an awful pointlessness to these attacks, which I just don’t get. Worse, I am convinced that ‘they’ don’t get it either. Whoever executes these things, I don’t think they fully understand what they’re trying to accomplish.

Terror is one of those words that seems to have exhausted itself. Terror. Terrorist. What does it mean? It means a bomb going off. It means men with rifles. It means people prepared to die so that they are able to kill. And I keep thinking, surely, they can see this – that this is all they are. People who are taking the risk of dying, just so that other people also die. People planning to kill so efficiently that they plant bombs in hospitals, where the dead are likely to be rushed. Which will ensure that more people die.

Random people. They don’t know these people. These people don’t know them. A random date and time, some chosen venues, and then its blood and funerals and fires. And television crews, and grief and more talk of the spirit that will keep the city going, because a spirit cannot be killed.

I don’t know what they want, these terrorists. I don’t know yet about their religion, their top guys, their financiers. But I do know that they’re somewhat dim. Stupid, at some level. They might know how to put together a bomb. They might know how to stay under the radar of international intelligence services. But you’ve got to be dumb not to see that whatever larger plan the terror groups had in mind when planning this madness, it is not going to work.

I don’t think they’re listening but I want to tell these people that if your plan is to make people succumb to your vision of an ideal state, you’re going to fail. If your plan is make people culturally orthodox, you’re going to fail. If your plan is to show off, to show the world how powerful you are and how a whole nation is quavering because of you, you are also going to fail. Because you will, in a few more hours, end up as a helpless corpse, dependent on the mercy of the security forces to be even granted the dignity of a shroud.

If your plan is to do something memorable, then too you will fail. It will not take two days for the headlines to change. Already the news channels have taken to expressing concern about the cancellation of cricket matches. You will be utterly forgotten, except perhaps in the nightmares of the hostages who saw your faces. Because people want cricket, not nightmares.

And if your plan is to make a nation any less democratic through your violent, undemocratic means, you are going to fail.

Can you not read the signs, damn you? Do you not even read the newspapers? If terror could truly change people, then we would not have had a promising voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir. That was a sign. To me, it signified that people had chosen their destiny. Nobody knows yet what they chose, and whether or not the people of Kashmir really want independence, but right now, they have shown the finger to violence by choosing democracy. They have chosen to say, we’ve had enough of fear and ruthlessness, enough of being spoken for; we want to be heard now.

This isn’t about the spirit of the people. It isn’t about people feeling secure either. I see all this terror and am just exhausted. I am not feeling spirited, not at all. Yet, the only desire I have right now is to be able to get all dressed up, step out of my house, catch a train, walk into a café, chat with friends, make plans, talk about books, watch a good play. And I will. We all will. Like we did after the last blast, and the blast before that one, and the one before.

If the frequency of the blasts is going up, and if there are annoying security checks even at hotels and cinemas and shopping complexes, well, we’ll go through the checks and go on living. There will be music and travel and art and blasphemy and new religions and old philosophies. There will also be territorial wars and faith-based conflict and bias and sycophancy and illegal immigration.

What kind of brainless twit cannot see that people do not change so easily? That no number of blasts can cure people of the desire for normalcy and fun. For beauty and passion and laughter. For money. And also for justice and truth.

These are the things people live for. And often, die for. If you try and take these things away from them, sooner or later, they turn upon you, disown you, destroy you. Or if they cannot do that, they exile themselves. They either leave or die fighting. Sometimes, they take years to make up their minds, even a couple of generations. But at no time in human history have the forces of violence been able to succeed in ruling people too long.

I just wanted to tell you that. Terrorists, whatever your big bosses are telling you, they’re wrong. You’re going to fail on every single count. Because you have not read enough history, or even enough religion. If you did, you could so easily have been the person you really want to be. The person everybody wants to be.

You could have been a martyr, if you joined the army or the police. Because that’s what’s happened, see? People are pouring out on the streets to pay their respects and to touch the dead bodies of the cops who died. Not yours.

You could have been an average young guy standing at VT station, waiting on the platform for his girlfriend to arrive. You could have seen her eyes light up as she got off a train, and you could have been happy. You could have danced!

You could have packed your bags and trotted off to a foreign country, perhaps. You could have sold flowers at a street corner. You could have made enough money to set up a flower shop. You could have learnt the names of all the flowers that have ever bloomed. You could have learnt to tell the difference between mogra, chameli, juhi and nargis with your eyes closed. You could have known how blessed this earth is, if you allow it to be. And you could have even looked forward to sinking into this delicious earth, which gave you a lifetime of fragrance and an impossible riot of colour.

You could have been one hardworking carpenter whose children and parents you have now taken away. You could have been a family man, patiently waiting for a train to go home for Bakr-eid, shiny tinseled fabrics folded neatly into your bags, thinking of the delighted little girls who would fight to sit in your lap and the quiet approval of a wife whose eyes hold the promise of heaven.

You could have been that man. But you are not going to be any of this, because you didn’t trust humanity. Because you didn’t trust in your own god. The one whose will decides how nations will grow and which way the wind will blow.

And guess what?

If your plan is to enter heaven, once again you will fail. Because there is no god – not even a strict, forbidding one – who takes into his bosom such scum who plant bombs in hospitals. Such scum who open fire upon anonymous old couples. Somebody so brainless, or so indiscriminating, that they don’t even stop to find out who they’re killing, and why. My mother says, god does not even reserve the right to forgive. He has said that only those you have hurt have the right to forgive you, and if they do not, then you cannot step into heaven. And nobody in this city is going to forgive you.

Don’t allow yourself the solace of thinking that you’ve done something very macho here. If all you can bring to this world is a death threat, you’re such a loser. A mosquito can do that. It is true that I am helpless against you (and the mosquitoes) or the havoc you cause in intangible, psychological ways that are may do worse things to us in the long run. But it is also true that in the long run, we are all dead.

So while I am alive, I am willing to go on trying to build the sort of world I want to live in. Who knows, if there is a god, then perhaps it is god’s will that my will be pitted against yours. And I think I am going to win.

Tagged, again

I don't like personal tags much, but have been tagged by a friend and have not been able to shake off blogging ennui, so here goes. I'm not tagging anyone else, but please feel free to take the tag forward if you want it.

The Rules: People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by them. People who have been tagged must tag at least 6 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by. Get it? Now spread the love.

If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
No idea. Probably nothing but a whole bunch of tears.

If you could have a dream come true, what would it be?
Peaceful surroundings, plenty (of food and water and time, if nothing else), pen-paper, laptop, a room of my own, and a positively lovely, very liberal man who doesn't complain and thinks that this is his dream come true, too.

What would do with a billion dollars?
Invest. Buy a house, set some aside to take care of food bills for the rest of my life. Build my mother a room in our ancestral village. Maybe even try a little organic farming. Put the rest into scholarships for students and artists.

Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Best friends are usually women, so, I seriously doubt it. If said best friend is a man, and isn't already attached, will tell him. Even if it means risking the friendship.

Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
Being loved is blessed. Loving can be sheer hell.

How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?
Depends on whether he's asking you to wait, wants you to wait. And what exactly I'm waiting for.

If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Nothing. Try and stay in touch, be a friend. Sort of.

If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
RTI. The right to information is something basic which can be used to tackle a lot of other ills.

What takes you down the fastest?
Kindness. Humour. Confidence. (Oh, alright, good looks too).

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Don't see more than a month ahead. Try not to.

What’s your fear?
Stopping to believe in anything, not even myself or my own work.

What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Bluesprite is steady, emotionally honest, insightful and somebody I can relate to very easily.

Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Married, poor and in love with someone who loved me, preferably, but if love is not an option, then single and rich.

If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
Not likely. But if it does, then whoever is less aggressive, more committed and has fewer stereotypical expectations from me as a woman.

Would you give all in a relationship?
Always.

Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
I very rarely forget.

Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
Prefer being single to being in a bad relationship or one that I don't really want. Relationships are too much hard work so they better be worth the trouble.

Mera-wala pink

When I was a kid, my favourite colour was red. I still remember a red silk dress I had, with thick silver trimming all over the bodice and sleeves. And if you're a close friend of mine, you'll probably have heard my little story about the huuuge tantrum I once threw in Hazratgunj, Lucknow: it was all about wanting a pair of red shoes.

I don't know at what point I stopped saying that red was my favourite colour, and when I went through a shifting spectrum of favourites - 'white' and 'black' and 'sea green' and, at one point, 'lilac'. Pink, however, was never my colour.

Nevertheless, there was a lot of pink in my wardrobe. And I didn't have a problem with that. Pink was just another colour - it was nice. Lots of other girls wore pink and I was told it suited me. That was all. I never really thought about it much until I grew up and heard phrases like 'baby blue' and 'baby pink'.

It was the women's magazines, I think, that started me off on this coloured gender association. Magazines like Femina and Cosmo would educate me about which colours to wear in which season, and what men were supposed to wear and what not, and what look marked you out as what type, and what colour to paint your room when you started to plan a family.

Knowing that it was a 'girl' colour didn't make pink my favourite. What did happen was that my brother stopped wearing it. And he gave up red too. And bright yellows. Actually, by the time he went to college, my brother's wardrobe had been reduced to shades of blue, white and black.
Still, I never paid close attention to this 'pink'ing of the female half of the globe until recently, when I bought a pink and white shirt for myself, and suddenly realised that it was the only pink item of clothing I had bought for myself over the last six years.

Then I began thinking about why. It isn't as if I have anything against it but there's something in me that's sort of turned off by a certain kind of pink. Not hot pinks. Not pale, rusty pinks. Not shades of maroon. Just the particular shade of pink that's typically associated with girls - the shade most men would not be seen dead in. Maybe that was my feminist streak rebelling against the stereotype.

Perhaps, it's all psychological. I did get quite exasperated when one of my landlords had the entire barsaati whitewashed pink, when he realised that his next tenant would be a single woman. I do not particularly like powder blue, but insisted on his repainting a room blue instead, just to make a point.

At any rate, all this got me obsessing about colours. I noticed colours on walls, on cars, on street signs, at cafes, corporate furniture, logos, banks, advertisements, electronic goods.And I noticedthat pink doesn't really figure in our world. There are no pink cars in showrooms. Over the last few years, I have spotted only one baby pink Ambassador (it reminded me of a giant,upturned cradle for some reason) near a shopping complex in Delhi; it had a laal-batti on top, so perhaps, it belonged to a woman sarkaari official.

I'm assuming that the cars are not pink because the assumption is that women won't be the ones buying the cars, even if they do drive them. Car colours are therefore mostly greys, whites, blacks, blues, and a couple of 'safe' ones like red and yellow, which men wouldn't mind being seen in. I noticed too that there are almost no 'pink' sign-boards. No pink cafes. No pink computers. No pinks on bank doors or cheque books. And even goods that are traditionally handled by women aren't really available in shades of pink. Not many pink refrigerators or washing machines or even mixer-grinders, for instance.

Where I did find pink was for services that were exclusively for women. There's a taxi service in Mumbai that's supposed to be especially for women. And sure enough, it had a pink thing going - the cars had a pink line painted somewhere and the female chauffeurs wore pink uniforms. More googling revealed that similar women's only taxi services in the UK and in Russia and almost everywhere else also had pink names and pink themes.

In small towns and villages where there is no conscious, generally accepted gendering of the colour spectrum, you see a lot more pink. Men wear pink turbans. Walls, doors and windows are painted a very pink shade of pink. Pink-n-gold parandis glitter around rear-view mirrors in autos and cycle-rickshaws. The horns of cows and bullocks are painted pink and so are many shop signs, and the nails of several men with big moustaches.

What is clear is that pink is seen as a women's colour in many places, and it is also clear that wherever this prejudice prevails, pink seems to vanish from the public eye. And I'm not surprised. If something is defined as definitely, exclusively meant for one group of people, the other group is made uncomfortable by it. In a world where everything must sell, nobody can afford to alienate customers. But of course, the final clincher is the fact that women never are alienated - or so the market assumes - by typically male colours/contours. They rarely protest at things always being blue or black or grey. They don't mind things not being pink. In fact, if they're like me, they may even wrinkle their noses at pink, perhaps sub-consciously resenting it.
Now, having thought all of this out places me in a weird situation. What do I do about pink? Get more pink? Get rid of it? Ignore it? And what do I do about blue? What does a modern feminist do?I don't know, of course. But for starters, I've bought myself a new pink toothbrush - a first in over a decade, (I refer to the colour, not the newness of the brush). Maybe I'll find a few answers in the sink some morning.

Written for Ultra Violet

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Perfect faces, national poisons

Good news is, my brother has had a baby girl (on the 18^th). She’s premature so is being watched closely but seems healthy. Everyone’s collective prayers seem to have been answered and I am now officially an auntyji.

Tomorrow, I shall distribute sweets. But two days ago, I was on a fast (though I had to interrupt it with a glass of nimbu-pani after getting light-headed and shaky in a very public space)

Coz the bad news is, in another city (where I also happen to have family) babies are born who have perfectly formed faces, but with the rest of their heads missing. The bad news is, we know who is responsible - one big, rich corporate giant who hasn’t paid for what could perhaps, if you were so inclined, be called a mistake. A giant that goes on making money, manufacturing and selling chemicals, in this very country where over 2o,000 have died.

I have to confess, there is a part of me – only a tiny part, I hope – that wants to forget. Like the prime minister, his cabinet, his planning commission and his advisers, and a succession of chief ministers in Madhya Pradesh have forgotten.

But I often think of those two other little girls I love – my little cousin sisters in Bhopal. They don’t live where the gas victims live. They don’t drink or bathe in that poisoned water. At least, I hope they don’t. Their parents, not native Bhopalis, don’t have 1984 as a constant backdrop to their negotiation with this country.

Like most families, we know what it is to lose children. And know that millions of rupees won’t compensate, certainly not Rs 1 lakh. Most people know how hard it is to forget one lost child – a grave somewhere, whose location you cannot forget, a toy not used enough, small clothes, a name that will no longer fetch a response. They know the lifelong ache of it, and the thousand and one curses one hurls against destiny or God or whoever took away that child, or gave a newborn child less than complete health.

Except that God didn’t. A certain corporation, led by people who make lots of money, did. And perhaps, several governments were conspirators – for not demanding the extradition of Dow's top bosses, not insisting that they show up in court in India, for not fining, insisting on a thorough clean-ups, insisting on appropriate compensation, and rehabilitation, and if need be, arresting and jailing them.

We all know that Dow wouldn’t have gotten away with this in its own country. We all know that, even if it went bankrupt and even if it never invested another cent at home or abroad, it would still have been made to pay and clean up and none of its future projects would be allowed to function unless they adhered to stringent safety norms and environmental clearances. Yet, in our country, they have gotten away with it and continue to make profits. And we sit back and let them.

Funny, about patriotism, isn't it? We get into fights with people in cinema theatres who don’t stand up for the national anthem. We file petitions if someone puts their feet up on a table which has a replica of the flag on it. We are so concerned about our ‘Indian culture’ that we cannot stand the sight of a short dress or a couple holding hands in a park. And for 23 years, a multinational chemical has been poisoning our people and we have not batted an eye. For 23 years, our mothers have given birth to deformed children. For 23 years, little girls have bled much before they reached puberty. For 23 years, we have settled for see-through lies, instead of justice. And we’re such patriots, aren’t we?

Perhaps it is just that, in tiny ways and large ways, we want to forget. Forget disasters and death. To get on with it, to move on, to make money and celebrate. And I wonder if, in this, we aren’t co-conspirators. What, after all, is a democratic government if it is not the will of the people? If the people chose not to forget, if the people remind the state that they have not forgotten… would a whole generation have grown up simmering under the knowledge that a huge injustice had been done and their own government was complicit?

Some people go on reminding. They travel on foot to Delhi. They sit, even now, without food or real shelter out on the street – reminding. Saying, let there be justice. 23 years is too long. One more day is too long. There are children drinking poisoned water. There are mothers giving birth to children, doomed to be unhealthy. One more day is too long.

But their hunger seems to have bypassed the state just like the hunger of a million others. And yes, I decided to fast in solidarity for a day, but who knows what it means? I could fast for a hundred days longer and so would a dozen others, but a dozen isn’t good enough. Perhaps, the hunger of a thousand would count. Or ten thousand, perhaps.

The thing is, I don’t know what else to do except sign petitions and fast and join protests and light candles. What should one do to bring about a justice that not enough people want?

It isn’t a good sign when I – who have not suffered a fraction of any kind of sorrow, loss or ill-health that the Bhopalis have – if even I cannot believe in my own government’s commitment to justice... And what’s worse, I cannot even bring myself to believe that even if this government goes, that the new one will live up to any commitments it makes. I am especially horrified that Dow has been allowed to set foot India again, in at least four different locations (at least two in Maharashtra), for different products and services, and through different subsidiaries. Some of these tie-ups are with very, very rich and very powerful corporations in India – the sort of corporations that could buy out a whole cabinet, if there was money enough involved.

I don’t know what to think or do. I really don’t know if Dow will ever be penalized the way it deserves to be. But if it isn’t, it will be one more sign that our democracy isn’t a healthy one. Some toxic poison has, perhaps, crept into its bloodstream and has messed it up genetically, so that generation after generation of leaders, businessmen, lawyers, judges – all have this twisted ability to turn a blind eye to justice.

Modern masques

Offered without comment, a bit from Salman Khan's blog:

When I return home from shooting everyday, as a routine, I first spend time with my two champions, whom I’ve named Myson and Myjaan. They are my life and I am passionate about them. While I do not humanize them I dislike referring to them as dogs or my pets. This is because they are a part of me, my family and they share my every joy and sorrow. They understand me completely and there is such a big bond, such a rapport that I share with them that it moves me beyond words. The best time whenever I get a Sunday off is the time I spend being with them. Myjaan is far smarter and naughtier than Myson, she always insists I pet her first and creates a big fuss if I get to Myson before her. They are also my sounding boards, they ground me and help me to think.

When I go on long outdoor stints and cannot take them with me, I speak to them on the phone. I have an amplifier system installed at home, so that they can hear me loud and clear…and I can feel them close with the sounds that they make. (emphasis mine). My domestic staff tells me that they recognize my voice and respond to it.


Hmm. Well, I had heard of people doing weird things like trying to make babies coo into phones before they can speak. Who knows... some day, when I have a dog of my own....

People, people!

Went to watch Aamir, this weekend, with my brother because I'd heard good things about it overall. The story, very briefly, tracks 24 hours in the life of an ordinary middle-class, educated man called Aamir. An ordinary, middle-class, educated, Muslim man.

This post, though, is not about the movie. It is about watching the movie.

So we get ourselves food and coffee and settle into a half-full auditorium. There's a woman sitting next to me, and next to her, her male companion. Fifteen minutes into the movie, she starts to talk.

It began as a staccato hum of whispers, which I shrugged off as the usual desi jahalat when it comes to auditorium behaviour. The hum rose in tempo and volume. Half an hour into the movie, she starts complaining quite loudly, "Bakwas film hai. Kya hai ye?"

I shrugged it off. Bad manners combined with bad taste, very likely. But did she walk into "Aamir" expecting a campus romance with chiffon sarees? Perhaps, her male companion had talked her into it and she was determined to let him know how much she resented it.

At the interval, she proclaimed: "Not even one hour and the interval. It won't even last two hours."

After the interval, she talked right through - to her companion, on her phone. She laughed at the protagonist as he wandered about the city, hounded and harassed.

She said, "Bombay mein aisi jagah kahan hain?" Her companion whispered something back and she laughed. "Haan, bas in log ki hi."

And a few minutes later, she said: "Kaisi film hai... isme sab musalman bhare pade hain."

Let me translate: "What sort of film is this? It is full of muslims."

Finally, I turned to her and told her I'd appreciate it if she continued her conversation after the movie had ended.

But you know, I've heard of many unlikely reasons for people not enjoying a movie. But this was a first. Oh well, one lives and learns. But people and prejudice... What do you do? Wonder if Raj Kumar Gupta knew he'd come up against this sort of attitude in the theatres?

Bits and pieces from the day

Fellow journalist Sourabh Gupta has been blogging at Matiyaburj. He's been doing some quite vivid postcard-posts from Bombay. Go look.

And I found this absolutely lovely poem that somehow fit my mood for the day. Here's a sample:

"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?"
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.,
"If I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I'll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook.

And the full version's here.